Taxi in Lima | Rose Mary Boehm

He had two teeth left in his lower jaw. He also
had two nodding dogs on his dashboard.
No air-conditioning. ‘The asthma, understand?’
But the window was down and the fumes
from a bus stopping next to us almost
asphyxiated me. He coughed dramatically.
It’s a question of price in a country
where everything is makeshift.
Why buy new if you can mend it,
where your water heater will
be hung up on two instead of four
pins because four are inconvenient.
Street dogs roaming, miraculously
surviving in streets where
nothing is lawful.
The shoeshines hanging out
in front of the pharmacy that’s
next to the bank where cambistas
chant ‘dollars’, ‘euros’ at anybody
blonde enough to have pockets
full of money. Their rates are more
favorable than the banks’.
Today we heard the bishop of Lima
preach in favor of big capital
and the union of one man and
one woman. They don’t get married
much here, they make loads of kids
and vanish after beating her
badly. With the church’s blessing.
The afternoon brings romance
on the telly. Women who sigh.